The principal Opposition Congress, which appealed to Janata Dal (Secular) legislators to cast their “conscience” vote in favour of the party’s second candidate, Mansoor Ali Khan, suffered an embarrassment by enabling the victory of the ruling BJP’s Lahar Singh Siroya in the the Rajya Sabha elections on Friday.
The Congress, however, seems to have utilised the Rajya Sabha polls as a means to maintain a clear distance from the JD(S) ahead of the next year’s Legislative Assembly elections. Leaders of the Congress and the JD(S), who were involved in backdoor talks initially, appeared unable to strike an alliance largely owing to a clash of ego between former Chief Ministers Siddaramaiah (Congress) and H.D. Kumaraswamy (JD-S). In the run-up to the elections, both the leaders had indulged in verbal confrontation.
However, in a bid to form an alliance, Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha M. Mallikarjun Kharge, apparently, rushed to Delhi by skipping the first day of the party’s Chintana Shibira in Bengaluru to convince the Congress high command about the necessity of forming an alliance to defeat the BJP in the contest for the fourth seat.
